Is race a bio category or a social construct?

[Syne]

Race would seem to qualify as subspecies, even if no one will admit it. The clearest characteristics that we use to define races did originate from the same geographic/reproductive isolation that we use to define subspecies. Phenotypes (observable characteristics) can differ where the genotype (genetics) does not, through different expressions of the same genes.

I assume, evolutionarily, that difference has long been a signal of danger. An unfamiliar berry, predator, hostile/competing neighboring tribe, or invader. And due to in-group favoritism, necessary for group survival, it's easy to be hostile to the unfamiliar.

Most modern problems of race seem to be largely ginned up. Some politicians have a vested interest in keeping race relations at odds, and you can tell it's political when members of a pandered-to race (or gender) are ostracized when they don't toe the party line.

[C C]

The contemporary movement of conformity from philosophy to science to law is to eliminate even an obscure nook and utile slot for race having a biological basis. Accordingly it would be fruitless for me in even a foil-playing slash devil's advocate role to go against that pulverizing wall scraping across the conceptual / sorting landscape. Apart from maintaining awareness of any mitigated hold-outs.

Well, maybe one feeble gesture of criticism or going against the tide for the sake of either contrarianism or Freeman Dyson heresy.

The concept of race migrated from the domain of scholarly systems of classification to a biological idea in the 19th century. It wasn't grounded in genetics as molecular structure and activity, but in generalizations and measurements of more macroscopic physiological / morphological characteristics, etc. So we have this potential "slight of hand" trick that's transpiring today, of historical revisionism -- of treating "race" as if it was originally based in genetic assertions. Long before the speculative placeholder of "heredity material or agency" was finally, specifically filled in and resolved by later biological research. Accordingly dismissing it via contemporary standards which its 19th-century easing into biology wasn't trying to accommodate and qualify under to begin with.

Race can certainly be dismissed in the context of being an antiquated conception which life sciences don't need anymore. But if done solely on a basis of lacking genetic justification, that would seem to amount to retroactive editing.

“He always says that those who control the present can rewrite the past.” --Anne Fortier

“True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring." --Alexandre Dumas

Also, if not for the disparities and atrocities of contingent, ideological-driven events outside the domain of science[*], some scientists would still be blithely endorsing race (i.e., the stimulus for change didn't occur within the scientific operation itself, but via social pressures from without). While there was arguably always a faction of scientists who advocated that "race" belonged purely to earlier academic modes of sorting, they didn't constitute the opinion of the whole enterprise.

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[*] Nazism, colonial imperialism, social justice concerns among newer Marxist generations which refined / specialized beyond the dogmatic, traditional focus on just generic labor class (the "old left"), etc.

~

[Leigha]

Interesting, CC.

I wonder why whites were long considered the superior race, to people of color? Why would anyone assume superiority simply due to color, race, etc over another race? What started from a genetic origin, it turned eventually to a social construct to control certain populations. (it seems)
Thoughts?

---

Race would seem to qualify as subspecies, even if no one will admit it. The clearest characteristics that we use to define races did originate from the same geographic/reproductive isolation that we use to define subspecies. Phenotypes (observable characteristics) can differ where the genotype (genetics) does not, through different expressions of the same genes.

I assume, evolutionarily, that difference has long been a signal of danger. An unfamiliar berry, predator, hostile/competing neighboring tribe, or invader. And due to in-group favoritism, necessary for group survival, it's easy to be hostile to the unfamiliar.

Most modern problems of race seem to be largely ginned up. Some politicians have a vested interest in keeping race relations at odds, and you can tell it's political when members of a pandered-to race (or gender) are ostracized when they don't toe the party line.

How can race by itself be a subspecies, or do you mean certain races have been viewed as such?

[Syne]

Race would seem to qualify as subspecies, even if no one will admit it. The clearest characteristics that we use to define races did originate from the same geographic/reproductive isolation that we use to define subspecies. Phenotypes (observable characteristics) can differ where the genotype (genetics) does not, through different expressions of the same genes.

I assume, evolutionarily, that difference has long been a signal of danger. An unfamiliar berry, predator, hostile/competing neighboring tribe, or invader. And due to in-group favoritism, necessary for group survival, it's easy to be hostile to the unfamiliar.

Most modern problems of race seem to be largely ginned up. Some politicians have a vested interest in keeping race relations at odds, and you can tell it's political when members of a pandered-to race (or gender) are ostracized when they don't toe the party line.

How can race by itself be a subspecies, or do you mean certain races have been viewed as such?

Subspecies are only taxonomical classifications of observable characteristics that significantly differ between two populations of the same species that can still interbreed. As long as the racial differences are observable characteristics, they qualify. For example, the tiger species includes the subspecies of Bengal tiger, Sumatran tiger, and Siberian tiger. They all look like tigers and can successfully interbreed, but are distinct enough to be classified as subspecies.

Only different species cannot interbreed.

[Leigha]

Race would seem to qualify as subspecies, even if no one will admit it. The clearest characteristics that we use to define races did originate from the same geographic/reproductive isolation that we use to define subspecies. Phenotypes (observable characteristics) can differ where the genotype (genetics) does not, through different expressions of the same genes.

I assume, evolutionarily, that difference has long been a signal of danger. An unfamiliar berry, predator, hostile/competing neighboring tribe, or invader. And due to in-group favoritism, necessary for group survival, it's easy to be hostile to the unfamiliar.

Most modern problems of race seem to be largely ginned up. Some politicians have a vested interest in keeping race relations at odds, and you can tell it's political when members of a pandered-to race (or gender) are ostracized when they don't toe the party line.

How can race by itself be a subspecies, or do you mean certain races have been viewed as such?

Subspecies are only taxonomical classifications of observable characteristics that significantly differ between two populations of the same species that can still interbreed. As long as the racial differences are observable characteristics, they qualify. For example, the tiger species includes the subspecies of Bengal tiger, Sumatran tiger, and Siberian tiger. They all look like tigers and can successfully interbreed, but are distinct enough to be classified as subspecies.

Only different species cannot interbreed.

Ah, ''sub'' as in ''secondary'' not as in beneath. Gotcha, I understand now.

[Syne]

Ah, ''sub'' as in ''secondary'' not as in beneath. Gotcha, I understand now.

LOL! Oh, now I see how you could have taken that. Yeah, not "sub" as in subhuman or inferior. "Sub" as in a subdivision of a species.

[Leigha]

lol It's always best to ask.

[C C]

I wonder why whites were long considered the superior race, to people of color? Why would anyone assume superiority simply due to color, race, etc over another race? What started from a genetic origin, it turned eventually to a social construct to control certain populations. (it seems)

Thoughts?

Traceable to an historical mixture and overlapping of many elements too numerous to completely account for here. Including borrowing from the age-old template of social classes ranging from nobility to the working poor being treated as hereditary. (The momentum of that caste snobbery was still going on among "palefaces" themselves after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.)

Richard Henry Pratt introduced the word "racism" in 1902 (he was ironically a quasi-hater of indigenous North Americans). Fittingly in terms of past influences, he even suggested a tie-up between class and race: "Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow. Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism."

The earliest recorded instance of an European indirectly referring to other Europeans as "white people" was in 1612 by playwright Thomas Middleton, as used in his play "The Triumphs of Truth". Even in that context there was no trumpeting of Europeans being superior to non-Europeans; and the fictional character introducing the expression was an African king.

While there was technically no "white race" and no "racism" in that era and before, there was abundant ethnocentrism at the level of tribe, nation, or situated populations / communities engaging in self-adoration. Which is to say, many if not most scattered civilizations around the globe entertained that their culture was superior to others, including the Chinese. Similar to the latter, the ancient Greeks viewed certain non-Greeks as barbarians. To Aristotle is ascribed the view that barbarians had a disposition which was amenable to slavery, since they were either feral in behavior or natively lacked a concept of freedom. Also, some itinerant groups of people became universally stereotyped as uncouth, untrustworthy, or conniving stock by the multiple societies they ventured into (Jews, gypsies, etc might be examples applicable to Europe centuries later).

Indentured slavery of both whites and people of color dominated early colonial America. Both were freed and admissible to citizenship after serving their period. When the flow of contracted servants from Britain and elsewhere subsided significantly (and their mortality became too high to tolerate), there was a shift to institutionalized slavery based on physiological characteristics or geographic origin. (Full ownership, perpetual status as property, and procedural breeding would offer a more reliable supply of labor.) To ensure the survival of the institution and its evasion of ethical judgements, the former European version of ethnocentrism was revamped to center on bodily features -- rather than culture, customs, or nationality being a "prior to observed behavior" indicator of barbarism (deficiency in moral discipline as well as intellectual inferiority). Thereby a thought orientation equivalent to racism developed and flourished beyond the confines of just slavery operation (but lacking that specific, not yet invented term) .

The spread of proto-racism converged with the ethnocentric pride which various societal states had pompously paraded for themselves over the millennia. In that "game", the advanced technology and the conquests of colonial imperialism later provided the seed for a distorted / misapprehended view of a specific combo of civilization and race having thus validated an inherent superiority (i.e, Western, European, "white people", Christianity, etc). Propaganda from the victors and their allies among the subdued or "commercially managed" populations flowered into the rest.

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[RainbowUnicorn]

I wonder why whites were long considered the superior race, to people of color? Why would anyone assume superiority simply due to color, race, etc over another race? What started from a genetic origin, it turned eventually to a social construct to control certain populations. (it seems)

Thoughts?

Traceable to an historical mixture and overlapping of many elements too numerous to completely account for here. Including borrowing from the age-old template of social classes ranging from nobility to the working poor being treated as hereditary. (The momentum of that caste snobbery was still going on among "palefaces" themselves after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.)

Richard Henry Pratt introduced the word "racism" in 1902 (he was ironically a quasi-hater of indigenous North Americans). Fittingly in terms of past influences, he even suggested a tie-up between class and race: "Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow. Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism."  

The earliest recorded instance of an European indirectly referring to other Europeans as "white people" was in 1612 by playwright Thomas Middleton, as used in his play "The Triumphs of Truth". Even in that context there was no trumpeting of Europeans being superior to non-Europeans; and the fictional character introducing the expression was an African king.

While there was technically no "white race" and no "racism" in that era and before, there was abundant ethnocentrism at the level of tribe, nation, or situated populations / communities engaging in self-adoration. Which is to say, many if not most scattered civilizations around the globe entertained that their culture was superior to others, including the Chinese. Similar to the latter, the ancient Greeks viewed certain non-Greeks as barbarians. To Aristotle is ascribed the view that barbarians had a disposition which was amenable to slavery, since they were either feral in behavior or natively lacked a concept of freedom. Also, some itinerant groups of people became universally stereotyped as uncouth, untrustworthy, or conniving stock by the multiple societies they ventured into (Jews, gypsies, etc might be examples applicable to Europe centuries later).

Indentured slavery of both whites and people of color dominated early colonial America. Both were freed and admissible to citizenship after serving their period. When the flow of contracted servants from Britain and elsewhere subsided significantly (and their mortality became too high to tolerate), there was a shift to institutionalized slavery based on physiological characteristics or geographic origin. (Full ownership, perpetual status as property, and procedural breeding would offer a more reliable supply of labor.) To ensure the survival of the institution and its evasion of ethical judgements, the former European version of ethnocentrism was revamped to center on bodily features -- rather than culture, customs, or nationality being a "prior to observed behavior" indicator of barbarism (deficiency in moral discipline as well as intellectual inferiority). Thereby a thought orientation equivalent to racism developed and flourished beyond the confines of just slavery operation (but lacking that specific, not yet invented term) .

The spread of proto-racism converged with the ethnocentric pride which various societal states had pompously paraded for themselves over the millennia. In that "game", the advanced technology and the conquests of colonial imperialism later provided the seed for a distorted / misapprehended view of a specific combo of civilization and race having thus validated an inherent superiority (i.e, Western, European, "white people", Christianity, etc). Propaganda from the victors and their allies among the subdued or "commercially managed" populations flowered into the rest.    

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from my brief read into history the middle eastern scholars around 2000 years ago looked upon white people as primitive animals barely capable of comprehending culture as a paradigm.
even as early back as the crusades, the western white skins were bent on genocidal behaviour raping women and children before butchering them. entire towns and villages in one go.

this butchery of women and children by europeans was considered completely barbarian. much as they were called barbarians.

thus, do not let others dictate your narative of intellect.

genetically, darker the skin the less properous was the land... (probably)
thousands of years of culture bending toward survival of the fittest at all costs bares no real time for metropolitan concepts of ideological culture metaphors.

[C C]

from my brief read into history the middle eastern scholars around 2000 years ago looked upon white people as primitive animals barely capable of comprehending culture as a paradigm.

That's just it, though. There seems to be no formal conception of "white people" before the early 17th century, and as the manufacturing of a race till even later (whether superior or inferior). "Middle East" as far as Islamic scholars go didn't arise till some centuries after the [supposed] birth of Christ. (Not that you're necessarily referring to them -- there's just the happenstance(?) abutment with "crusades" afterwards).

Nell Irvin Painter: People with light skin certainly existed well before our own times. But did anyone think they were “white” or that their character related to their color? No, for neither the idea of race nor the idea of “white” people had been invented, and people’s skin color did not carry useful meaning. What mattered was where they lived; were their lands damp or dry; were they virile or prone to impotence, hard or soft; could they be seduced by the luxuries of civilized society or were they warriors through and through? What were their habits of life? Rather than as “white” people, northern Europeans were known by vague tribal names: Scythians and Celts, then Gauls and Germani. --The History of White People . . . Chapter One

Who’s White?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/books/...don-t.html

even as early back as the crusades, the western white skins were bent on genocidal behaviour raping women and children before butchering them. entire towns and villages in one go.

this butchery of women and children by europeans was considered completely barbarian. much as they were called barbarians.

thus, do not let others dictate your narative of intellect.

genetically, darker the skin the less properous was the land... (probably)
thousands of years of culture bending toward survival of the fittest at all costs bares no real time for metropolitan concepts of ideological culture metaphors.

Again, the ethnocentric perspective of these various civilizations often deemed some "Other" to be the barbarians (when not a wholesale sweep of everybody else). The fact that their very own military forces would likewise either occasionally or routinely engage in acts of savagery when invading a territory themselves is a repeated horror throughout history and to this day.

In the past, many so-called population groups have had related factions that might qualify as legitimate, migratory "barbarians". Potentially co-existing at the same time with their geographically separated, supposedly refined and developed counterparts.

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